Every hotel in our haunted hotel guides gets a Haunted Rooms Score out of 5. It’s there to help you compare hotels quickly: how strong the haunted reputation is, how much real history sits behind it, and how easy the hotel makes it for someone who wants a ghostly stay. We can’t measure ghosts, and the score doesn’t claim to. It measures the things we can check.
The three parts of the score
1. Haunted reputation (1 to 5)
How well documented the hotel’s haunted reputation is. We look at how long the stories have been told, whether they are consistent, whether specific ghosts, rooms or floors are named, and how widely they’ve been covered by newspapers, TV, books and recognized lists such as USA Today 10Best or Historic Hotels of America’s most haunted hotels.
- 5: nationally known, decades of consistent reports, named ghosts and rooms, wide media coverage
- 4: well known regionally, named ghosts or rooms, regular coverage
- 3: a steady local reputation with specific stories
- 2: occasional or vague reports
- 1: a single story or rumor
2. History (1 to 5)
How old and historically significant the building is, and whether the events behind its ghost stories are documented. A 19th-century landmark on the National Register with a recorded tragedy scores higher than a newer building with an untraceable legend.
3. Ghost hunter access (1 to 5)
How easy it is to have a haunted stay. Points are added if you can book or request the specific haunted room or floor, if the hotel openly talks about its ghosts, and if it runs ghost tours, haunted packages or paranormal events.
The overall score is a weighted average: haunted reputation counts twice, history and ghost hunter access once each. It’s rounded to one decimal place. Reputation carries the most weight because it’s what most people mean by “most haunted”.
Where our information comes from
We use the hotels’ own websites and published histories, National Register of Historic Places and state historical commission records, newspaper and TV coverage, published books on local hauntings, and accounts from guests and staff. Each guide lists its sources so you can check them yourself. Where a popular story can’t be confirmed, we say so.
Keeping guides up to date
Hotels close, change their names and renumber their rooms. We check every hotel’s opening status, name, address and booking links whenever a guide is updated, and show the date at the top of each page. If a hotel closes, we move it out of the main list.
Independence
Hotels can’t pay to be included or to change their score. Some booking links in our guides are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you book, at no extra cost to you. That never affects which hotels we include or how we rate them.
Tell us what we got wrong
Spotted a closed hotel, a changed room number or a better source? Email support@hauntedrooms.com and we’ll check it.